Just when you thought it was over Prince decides to stick around for an additional month.

That’s right, the last show was supposed to be Saturday March 31st, but the purple dude has decided, for whatever reason, to stick it out for another 8 shows in the month of April.

I guess the Coco Bongo isn’t quite ready yet.

This is good news, and depending on the ticket price, I may go ahead and see another show.

Ticket prices are reported as being all over the place, anywhere between $125-$250 even though the show is general admission.

If I can score them for under $150, I’ll probably go once more.

For those of you coming in April, well, you still have a chance to see the show.

Mike is playing the Luxor on June 10th.

The Luxor will not be his permanent home … rather, he will be kicking off a World Tour, and the Luxor will be the starting point.

The concert will be invitation only, and the general public will not be able to purchase tickets.

The aforementioned giant robot will be part of the promotion of his “Live Forever” World Tour, and apparently, not part of a running show here in Vegas.

So there you have it. M.J. is indeed playing Las Vegas, one night, right before leaving town for a World Tour, and you probably won’t be able to attend.

I guess that’s that.

I went over to “the greatest” Poker Room in the world for about an hour today (The Venetian), and afterward decided to go next door and check out the progress of The Palazzo … of which I am eagerly awaiting the opening.

It’s still slated to open before the end of the year, and judging by the progress, I believe it.

The construction workers were in good moods. They tried to pose for pictures for me, and jokingly told me that it would be $100 per photograph, etc.

Some of the most polite construction people I have encountered in town. The thing hasn’t even opened yet and I’m already getting superior service!

I took about 20 pictures, but the ones below should give a reasonable view of the progress:

I wonder how much they would take for just the brass asses?

I won’t let them destroy those things if I have to personally chain myself to one of the butt cracks!

An investor group has increased its bid for casino operator Riviera Holdings Corp. to $27 a share, or $336 million, and set a deadline of Friday for the company to respond.

Shares, which jumped 10 percent Monday on the new offer from Riv Acquisition Holdings Inc., slipped 30 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $27.80 on Tuesday on the American Stock Exchange. Shares climbed back 29 cents to $28.09 in after-hours trading.

The share price, which is higher than the offer, implies the market is still expecting a higher bid to emerge.

The offer would also include the assumption of about $214 million in debt.

It is the latest in a series of moves for Riviera Holdings, which owns the Riviera casino-hotel on the Las Vegas Strip and the Riviera Black Hawk Casino near Denver.

In December, a different group led by real estate developer Ian Bruce Eichner and New York-based D.E. Shaw Group withdrew a $21 per share offer after failing to win over enough shareholders.

Riviera’s board also rejected an unsolicited $20 per share takeover bid from International Gaming & Entertainment LLC in September, just weeks after shareholders also turned down a $17 per share bid from Riv Acquisition.

The Riv Acquisition group is led by Paul Kanavos and Robert Sillerman, managing members of New York-based Flag Luxury Properties LLC, and other investors.

“We believe that our proposal has the support of other large stockholders,” Kanavos said in a letter to the company sent Monday.

Last week, Riv Acquisition bought the option to buy a 9.2 percent stake in Riviera from the Triple Five group, run by the Ghermezian family, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Ghermezians also agreed to vote with the group, giving Riv Acquisition the support of more than 20 percent of the outstanding shares of the company, said two people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.

The offer needs the approval of holders of 60 percent of the company’s stock to go through.

Riviera Holdings Chief Financial Officer Mark Lefever declined to comment on the latest offer.

From the “You Have Got To Be Fucking Kidding Me” Department:

We still don’t know for certain if Mike is going to do a show or not, and the feeling down here on the Strip is that as more time passes, we care less and less.

Kind of like Axl Rose’s “Chinese Democracy”.  I stopped giving a shit if it would be released 3 years ago.

I feel like the “will he or won’t he” crap that MJ is doing right now is having the same effect.

But, just when you get bored of Mike and his Las Vegas antics, you wander across a press release like this:

Michael Jackson to Build Giant Robotic Replica of Himself in Las Vegas

King of Pop Michael Jackson is planning to erect a giant robot of himself which shoots laser beams for his Las Vegas show, international media reported.

Jackson is reviewing plans for a 50 foot robotic replica in the desert sands should he decide to agree to a show in the casino capital.

Laser beams would shoot out of it so it would be the first thing people flying would see.

“Neon is wonderful, but it’s old school,” Mike Luckman of Luckman Van Pier, an entertainment consultancy firm, said.

Luckman’s partner, Andre Van Pier has designed Jackson’s robot and also sketched out a stage set of a giant audience-interactive video game with human robots controlled by the audience.

The controversial singer has reportedly bought a house in Las Vegas and has met with tourism officials and hotel owners to discuss the possibility of a long-term show.

Meanwhile, Jackson is currently working on his new album, which will include him rapping on some tracks.

And you thought The Stratosphere was tacky.